Loud

No optical, weak rear sound, best for stereo

It's a good stereo reciever with alot of power. The surround sound I leave to a new Sony STR-DE885. But for the stereo setup with Mirage speakers, it works well until it goes into Protect Mode. I removed the cover and jiggled the wires right behind the A/B Switch on the left. That keeps me going for several weeks. I hope this helps other owners

High Power, Simple Operation and adjustments

No decoders or optical inputs

I bought the STR-DE515 on clearance at Sears over 5 years ago and have never had any problems with this unit. It has recently been replaced with a Sony STR-DE835, which is more powerful and has Dolby decoder and optical inputs. I intend to keep this unit around as a spare, as it has served me very well. I even used it as an Amplifier to DJ several weddings, and even after hours of playing at nearly 80% it never faltered.

Similar Products Used:

Sony STR-DE835

Great sound in both stereo and surround sound modes. Execellent power performance. No flaws in anything, would recommend to anyone!

Havent found any in 5 years yet and im not gonna find any either!

I have owned this receiver for about 5 years now and ive never had any trouble at all out of it. It performs perfectly everytime i use it, which is almost on a daily basis. Even in surround sound mode, its sounds better than most theaters do. An as far as some of the people on here who say Sony is junk, why dont they try not using the sucky speakers cause thats alot of the trouble. One person said that the rear surround wasnt as loud as the front, well there not supposed to be. There just to add certain types of the audio surroundtracks. Ive also owned 3 sony cd players which ive owned for about 4 years and have never had trouble out of any of them either. This sony receiver is the best in its class and for the price range.

when working,it did have nice 5.1 sound

Protect mode for no reason. it did have a tendency to overheat.

at first, very nice receiver especially if you have a basic surround speaker set up,then occaisionally it would go into "protect mode"for no reason..now it won't come out of protect mode...volume has never been above 50%....no wires have been crossed,,i even replaced all the fuses that i could find inside....

Similar Products Used:

pioneer,kenwood...

Stereo is great, bass is great I use bass boost as I dont have a sub and it rocks, looks cool

Protect mode comes on every so often (Once a month for me), remote is now completely useless no buttons work, bad clarity and depth for centre and rears.

The 515 was my first receiver that supported surround sound so understandably I as very happy with it initially, however after becoming accustom to surround sound I have found a few faults. The centre speaker lacks clarity and the rear speakers are nowhere near as dominate as they should be. The clarity of the centre is so poor compared to the fronts that I resort to stereo over surround often, which is excellent sharp and rich sounding I must say. Although this review seems mostly negative I do like this receiver a lot and recommend it to those wanting to enter the market in this price range.

Similar Products Used:

none

UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN

THIS DAMB THING IS PISSING ME OFF BECAUSE THE PROTECT THING KEEPS POPPING UP AND IM PISSED THE F*** OFF CAN YOU HELP ME PLEASE

Similar Products Used:

UNKNOWN

Price/Sound ratio is good. Availability. AC3 ready. Value for what you get.

Sony has a diferent way of calculating W-output - low power, low amps. Sound on rear + centre speakers is not good. Fragile electronics...

I bought the Sony STR-DE515 receiver 20 months ago. At first I had Sansui speakers (100W RMS rating p/speaker) connected all-round (L/R, front and rear) - this sounded quite awefull. Especially the rear channels (Sony rates them 35W) sounded very poor. Nevertheless, I was quite impressed by what it offered as this was my first home-theatre setup.

Using the main speakers for normal CD-audio soon led me to buy a pair of Mission 702 speakers. I also added a Yamaha 150W sub. Since I added the Missions and the sub I was impressed by the sound quality of the main (L/R) channels.

Halfway through the first year something started going wrong with the volume adjustment using the remote. While adjusting the volume there would be sudden busts of higher/lower volume levels!!! This sounded very scarry so I took it in for a warranty fix. Well, to say the least, it is still doing it and has not been fixed.

Taking a realistic view would leave me with the verdict: The Sony STR-DE515 is a good buy for the price when you are entering the home-theatre world. However, nothing beats a mix of the best components if you look at sound quality and future upgrades. I moved to a huge flat on the beach at Milnerton (Cape Town) with a great view of the mountain and a much larger room (8m X 4.5m) for my theatre. The time has come for seperate components. I would rather save up a few months more and get quality than go entry-level... well, thats just me.

Similar Products Used:

None - have been auditioning various more costly seperate unit systems (Rotel, NAD, Outlaw).

Actually Good Sound for the money!

Unit Shuts Down on occasion.

Since the beginning when I purchased this unit at Sears for $249 on 8-98 the unit shuts down and protect shows on the display!!! I did take it back to Sears and of course when it was on the bench it did not shut down. The tech said he had it on for 3days. I kept a log on the protect mode as it happended waiting for it to finally die, well it still doing it and the warrnatys run out. I did check for shorts on the speakers. After reading other reviews on other Sony products it seems this might be a defect.. Anybody know how I can get my money back from Sony???? My Harmon Kardon 4 channel bought in 72 is still pumping out sounds in the garage, now thats longevity, although under powered.

Now for the future I'm considering an Onkyo tx-ds575 Dts Or a Yamaha Htr-5150 both in the same price range $500. Anyone have any comments on their respective strength and weaknesses please e-mail me. Also I'm not kidding about getting money back from Sony for a defective product.. Tks

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood, Harmon Kardon

Price, several sources, A/B speaker switch

Selection of DVD source is clumsy, not enough video inputs, non-universal remote

Unit plays well for me, but I don't really push it. Just got new DVD player. Kind of a pain to selct the DVD input, and remote won't run DVD player or TV. For the price, as an entry level unit into home theater/surround sound, a nice deal.

Similar Products Used:

None.

Pretty powerful and stylish. Quite a good sound. Cheap.
Made in France, not in China or Indonesia.

Not good with low speaker impedanses.
Very bad speaker terminals. Such a bad channel balance.
Feels like a piece of plastic.
Well, what can I say, Its a sony!

If you dont have lots of money in your pockets, this may be a really good choice!
Better than any Technics or Pioneer in this price level.

Similar Products Used:

Many.